EXCLUSIVE: Sasha Obama smokes a cigarette and pores over an environmentalist book as she looks thoughtful sitting under a tree in LA – days after Barack and Michelle spent their anniversary apart
Sasha Obama enjoyed a quiet weekend in Los Angeles as she soaked up the late summer sunshine with a book and a cigarette on Saturday.
The former first daughter looked comfortable in an off-the-shoulder, loose-fitting purple top and white trousers, matching other park-goers as she relaxed in a striped folding chair.
Topping off the look with owlish glasses, she looked like she was engrossed in a Daniel Quinn novel as she sipped from a hunter green Hydro Flask and occasionally broke away to check her phone.
Blocking out distractions with a pair of $550 Airpods Max headphones, the 22-year-old kept it natural with minimal make-up, pulling her long, braided brown locks back into a ponytail.
The 1996 novel – The Story of B – tells the story of a Catholic priest who is sent on his orders to spy on a charismatic environmentalist who they think may be the antichrist and who they end up trying to kill.
Bookish: Sasha Obama looks engrossed in a novel as she relaxes in an LA park on Monday
But there’s always time for a cheeky cigarette and a look at the phone on a sunny day
The former first daughter looked comfortable and relaxed as she strolled across the grass for a day at the park
Sasha, 22, has been spotted around town following her graduation from USC with proud parents Barack and Michelle Obama looking on in May.
But her parents have seen little of each other since then, as Michelle has been enjoying a long summer holiday with friends Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg on the director’s new $250 million super yacht as it cruises around the Mediterranean.
And the couple were thousands of miles apart when they celebrated their 31st wedding anniversary on October 3.
But they did post overwhelming anniversary tributes to each other on social media with Barack describing the former first lady as ‘brilliant, kind, funny and beautiful’.
She, in turn, uploaded a photo of herself and her husband of more than three decades posing in front of a city backdrop.
“31 years, and a lifetime ago,” she wrote.
‘I love going through life with you by my side, @BarackObama. Happy anniversary, baby.’
On Thursday, the couple’s youngest daughter was spotted working up a sweat on a treadmill at a gym in downtown Los Angeles and a few days earlier she was seen handing over her car keys to a Subaru dealer in the city.
The 1996 novel by Daniel Quinn tells the story of a Catholic priest whose faith is tested when he is sent to spy on a charismatic environmentalist
Wearing a pair of $550 Airpods Max headphones to block out distractions, the 22-year-old seems oblivious to her surroundings as she enjoys her book
Her sneakers are off as she kicks back in her low folding chair under the shelter of a tree
Sasha followed in the footsteps of her older sister, Malia Obama, 25, who moved to LA to pursue a career as a screenwriter after graduating from Harvard University in 2021.
The couple now share a flat despite mum Michelle revealing that ‘there was a period when they couldn’t stand each other.
“The thing I love the most is that those two girls are each other’s best friends,” she told Today hosts Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager in November.
“I said, you wait, you’re going to wake up one day and you’re going to look at that other person, and you’re going to know that the two of you share something very unique, especially given what they’ve been through,” she explains.
“To see them in that place where they’re each other’s support systems and they have each other’s backs, that’s the thing a mother wants.”
But both daughters have been seen repeatedly smoking, a habit they may have picked up during their father’s long-standing efforts to kick the habit.
Barack (62) started smoking as a teenager and he famously promised his wife, Michelle (59), that he would quit before running for president.
In 2009, he admitted during a press conference: ‘As a former smoker, I struggle with it constantly.
‘Have I sometimes fallen off the wagon? Yes. Am I a daily smoker or a constant smoker? No, I don’t do it in front of my children. I don’t do it in front of my family.
“And you know, I’d say I’m 95 percent cured, but there are times where I mess up.”
The sociology graduate seems to be making short work of her paperback as the shadows lengthen
The 22-year-old kept it natural with minimal make-up, pulling her long, braided brown locks back into a ponytail
The former White House resident is not recognized by her fellow park users as she sits in the shade
A bottle, a phone and a comfortable chair make for a perfect afternoon in the park
Another check of the phone as the book is momentarily abandoned for a newer medium
The former president appears to have shot down allegations that he had cocaine-fueled gay sex after crook Larry Sinclair claimed the future president performed oral sex on him twice in Chicago in 1999.
Sinclair – who has a long criminal history, including convictions on charges of forgery, fraud and theft, and who has served prison terms in Arizona, Florida and Colorado – first made the claims in 2008, as Barack was poised to run for president .
But the claims took on new life in August when The New York Post released a letter Barack wrote to his girlfriend Alex McNear in 1982, when he was 21 years old.
In it, he wrote that he ‘likes to make love to men on a daily basis, but in the imagination’, according to the publication.